The Window Seat | Black Forest to the Alps
As the train took winding turns amid green fields, time momentarily collapsed, and I was left to my own, thinking about the words of the late French writer, Anatole France -
“If the path is beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.”
The journey was indeed alluring and gratifying, as one would usually expect in the European countryside. But more than the panoramic visual richness, it is the mundane sights, and the little rituals and gestures during such journeys in strange lands that heighten the senses, leaving you wanting for more - for they help you build familiarity in an alien territory, making you hopeful and intrigued and often, even anxious about the new worlds yet to surface. This notion of transition that accompanies train journeys and the inevitable circle of arriving and departing, remains etched in our everyday lives in distinct, memorable ways, making us return to them time and again. Emerging in the wake of successes or from valleys of despair, these journeys embody the urge and curiosity to begin afresh and keep exploring, while also fostering a feeling of being held safe and close.
A weird sense of universality is shared on trains, and I couldn’t resist partaking in the same joys that this one too offered - reading a book, sipping freshly brewed coffee and overhearing fellow passengers’ conversations. Seeing the majestic contoured terrains and appreciating the horizon against which the blue shades of the sky turned into the landscape’s shades of green during the trip, gave me the perfect reason to lie back in my window seat and cherish the vibrant colour-play, as I savoured croissants from the pantry.
Alerted gently often by the sounds of the train’s announcements and horns, as I gazed at the shifting sceneries outside, witnessing how lakes and streams swiftly dissolved into fields, meadows, the ‘green’ Black Forest mountain range, and rows of towering pine trees, I couldn’t help but notice how the weather changed from place to place, sunny once and then cloudy, rainy and snowy soon after. I was left awe-struck by the formidability and unpredictability of nature - how the mellow, moderate and extreme flawlessly made way for one another. While watching the freely flowing crystal-clear streams of water and charming villas and gardens overlooking the much-celebrated Lake Como, I couldn’t resist, and asked myself -
Does nature belong to us or do we belong to it?
In a quest for human superiority, do we undermine its true essence?
In those hours on the train, the geographical borders that I had arrived with, in my mind, didn’t make sense anymore for I had observed something way more mightier and profound than these man-made edges. The fact that we were crossing through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, was reduced to the sidelines and all that mattered then was that we were all united by the surrounding landscape, the shared train and the time. It is through travel that the linearity of life gets confronted by twists and turns, and when our memory’s malleability is truly shaped through meeting new people and learning stories and experiences other than our own.
Perhaps, a train is a threshold
a portal to new worlds - a bridge between what is known and what is being sought anew
a chance to build new relationships, make transitions in life, and reflect on what has gone past
and all that awaits us.
And, how endearing and ephemeral are these new worlds and moments! Replete with promises and fears, sights of lovers lost in long embraces, anxious mothers kissing their kids, folks bidding each other farewell goodbyes - all holding onto one another yet dreaming of beginnings in new places. In the brief smiles, silences and conversations shared with strangers, I kept pondering over how we are so different, yet so similar. Distant, yet close.
In that slow ordinariness - of seeing the skies’ hues changing and the shades of the landscape resembling those of my old crayons, kids running noisily across the aisle, the elderly snoring away and the cows grazing outside - was a gentle affirmation that life’s greatest luxuries are often within and around us yet we take them for granted. The train took us around the snow-covered Alps amidst villages and hamlets with traditional wooden cottages, bridges and dark tunnels, reminding me of my childhood when I was first introduced through television shows to the countryside as Heidi’s home, particularly how she rolled down the hills and enjoyed the breeze.
The castles and cathedrals that we saw on the way made me question if the journey was real or fictional as they looked like scenes straight out of storybooks and films. Or, maybe, they were planted there to remind me of the sacred connection that I had fostered with nature early on, as a young girl, in a way that was strikingly similar to Heidi’s life. Her innocent and playful nature would often drive her to imagine herself riding on the clouds, playing with birds and kittens, jumping like sheep, and having cheese and milk while being fortunate enough to wake up to the view of the Alps every day. The words of the novel’s author, Johanna Spyri swiftly resurfaced in my mind as a divine sign of assurance -
“God arranges everything for us so that we have no more fear or trouble and may be quite sure that all things will come right in the end.”
As the journey neared its end, I realised that I had arrived as a relatively unfamiliar outsider in Europe but the train journey ensured that I left with countless new stories, some of the Europeans and some of my own. As people and stations blurred into one another, I was left perplexed, yet grateful - about the sheer abundance and diversity we’ve been bestowed with - of nature’s rhythms, languages, styles of architecture, and the endless possibilities of learning (and unlearning) in faraway places among local communities. I returned, thinking how traveling on a train is nearly equivalent to learning to (re)appreciate life, and also a chance to know and practice grace and restraint all over again. It is in these journeys, that tales of freedom and hope, and sorrows and surprises are suspended. It is on a train that we are genuinely relieved from the rigour of navigating, becoming deeply cognisant and comfortable with our individuality, emotions and purposes.
With travel intensifying, countries now being far more connected physically and virtually than before, and places and cultures becoming homogenous, I couldn't help but cherish the small, unique joys and epiphanies offered by such experiences. It is in these temporary, intimate journeys, that the true, permanent spirit and timelessness associated with travel, and nature’s intrinsic, healing powers are all deeply embedded and evoked. And, one is compelled to believe in the magic of pursuing countless such journeys, while gradually learning to accommodate all their highs and lows. Being driven amidst those winding roads and rail tracks in the countryside, seeing the urban mayhem mutate into the pastoral serenity was serendipitous and symbolic - the region’s shifting contours, textures, colours, peaks and valley, sharply emulating the undulating fabrics and terrains of our own lives.
Maybe, travelling elsewhere takes us a step closer to our most authentic selves, making us introspect -
Who are we?
Where and to whom do we truly belong?
Where is home?
